Immediately after the massive earthquake of September 21, 1999, the Humanistic Education Foundation (HEF) rounded up over 2000 volunteers to provide assistance in the quake-stricken zone. They focused especially on problems related to education and supervision of children's after-school activities. When powerful aftershocks weren't sending the volunteers darting for cover, the HEF people were edgily calling meetings in temporary shelters to formulate plans for getting the area's education system running again.

Says Shih Ying, a member of the board of directors for HEF: "People expect a lot from educators. We require them to be both nurturing and highly educated. We want them to stand at the blackboard, and we want them to take a kid in their arms when the kid needs it. They have to be all things to all people. But I think the most important thing of all is for them to be a good judge of character." If a teacher can see the heart of gold in a "problem child," says Shih, then he'll naturally be able to see the blueprint of a new school amidst the rubble of collapsed buildings.

Wait for the kids

Curriculum and teaching methods are the core focuses of HEF's effort to rebuild education in the quake-hit area. The idea is to loosen restrictions and innovate: "If kids are suffering from nightmares about earthquakes and they can't keep up in class or finish their homework, then we've all got to wait for them to catch up." HEF is working hard to promote the "thematic education" concept. The idea is to satisfy the requirements of the nine-year integrated curriculum while avoiding the traditional one-way Chinese teaching approach, where the teacher is only asked to shoehorn information into children's minds. The goal is to establish a new "dialogue style" of education in which teachers and students engage in a two-way interaction.

Broken down to its bare essentials, thematic education is based on the following line of thought: "situation A problem A course goals and content."

When teaching about earthquakes, for example, a teacher can think of ways to work the concept of proportion into math class for elementary school students in the upper grades. Is there, for example, a proportional relationship between an earthquake's magnitude and the degree of damage caused, such as the number of collapsed buildings? A careful look at the numbers might reveal that the relationship between magnitude and the degree of damage does not seem proportional. Does that shoot down this teaching approach? Not really. If a student can question whether there is a lack of proportion between magnitude and the degree of damage, then he has clearly understood the concept of proportionality. And the earthquake theme can be worked into other courses as well. Students in art class can draw their new homes. In Chinese class they can write about their new homes. This gives them a chance to use their imaginations, and to focus in school on things that are actually connected with their lives.

At a press conference held by the National Alliance for Post-Earthquake Reconstruction in October 1999, HEF announced its Plan for Rebuilding a Creative Education System, and called for the concepts of education reform to be incorporated into efforts to rebuild physical infrastructure.

It was a parent at Tuniu Elementary School, in Taichung County, who first invited HEF to contact school administrators there, and in December Tuniu Elementary became the first school to implement the Plan for Rebuilding a Creative Education System. Tuniu was later joined by seven schools in Nantou County, including Shuiwei Elementary, Kuanghsing Elementary, and Yenho Junior High.

Administrators at Tuniu Elementary, which is located on the banks of the Tachia River, often hear suggestions that they change the school's name, which means "earthen buffalo" in Chinese. But the name has historical significance. When the earliest Han Chinese settlers moved into the local area (today part of Shihkang Rural Township), there was frequent conflict between the Chinese and the Aborigines. To minimize disputes, a Chinese official ordered a large moat dug just downstream from where Tuniu Elementary is located today. Next to the moat the Chinese piled up 19 large defensive earthen mounds. From a distance the mounds looked a bit like big water buffalo, and people took to calling them "earthen buffalo."

HEF volunteers descended on Tuniu Elementary (with a total of 19 homerooms, more than 600 students, and 30-plus teachers) and began organizing meetings between architects and school administrators. HEF also scheduled a regular Wednesday afternoon course for the school's faculty to help them develop new teaching ideas, organized workshops for parents, and supervised the publication of a newsletter to report on the progress of education reform at Tuniu.

Breaking down class boundaries

Before the earthquake, the teachers at Tuniu Elementary taught the same way teachers do everywhere in Taiwan, with each teacher in charge of his or her own class. It was rare for teachers to work together. But the 921 earthquake has brought changes.

Because the school buildings had collapsed, teachers had to find new ways to teach in new surroundings. In the sixth grade, there used to be three classes and three teachers, but there weren't enough temporary shelters after the earthquake to maintain that setup, so they had to go with two classes. They hadn't realized at the time that the new arrangement would help them to overcome old boundaries between the different classes.

Chiu Chao-hui, of HEF's Tungshih office, reports that the first opportunity for HEF volunteers to help out at Tuniu came in Chinese class. The sixth-grade Chinese textbook gave synopses of the lives of three great historical figures, but the information was so brief that the students found it boring. HEF volunteers helped the teacher split the class into groups and read full-length biographies with the students. This approach spurred a lot of discussion in class.

According to Chen Fen-yu, a teacher at Tuniu: "It always started out with everybody throwing out all sorts of ideas. Then we'd gradually work out a clearer picture of something that would work. It wasn't really anything we planned, but bit by bit, teaching plans just emerged." With the help of HEF volunteers, Ms. Chen developed a teaching plan for her second-grade class based on the theme of "my world," in which she brought in everyday people from the community to talk about what they do for a living. Guest lecturers included an old peach farmer named Mr. Liu, a store owner, and an employee from the local recycling plant. In her science class, Ms. Chen developed a unit on insects and had the children make construction paper into little boxes where they could place bugs for observation.

In the second semester, sixth-grade teachers Hung Yun-chu and Hung Tsai-ping got together with another teacher to incorporate preparations for the class graduation trip into their Chinese lessons. They took selections from the Chinese textbook that had to do with places like Tsengwen Reservoir and the Central Cross-Island Highway, threw in some readings from other sources, and put it all together in a month-long teaching plan focusing on the graduation trip.

As part of the teaching plan, the teachers divided students into groups to discuss itinerary, transportation, lodging, meals, and prices, all of which were decided upon by the students themselves. Each group presented a trip proposal, and a class vote was held to decide which trip sounded like the most fun, and which the most feasible. Parents were also encouraged to express their opinions, and travel industry professionals were invited to come to the school and give talks. The students learned a lot about how to plan a trip.

Renewed inspiration

Hung Yun-chu noted that cooperation among teachers is very important in thematic education, and teachers with different specialties can complement each other. One of the teachers in their case had special computer skills, and taught the students a lot about how to find travel information on the Internet.

Hung Tsai-ping confided that she used to feel very self-conscious about people watching her teach class, and felt that the students' test scores were the only yardstick by which to measure the quality of her teaching. But now that she works together with the other teachers she has opportunities to share experiences with her colleagues and pick up new ideas. She now feels a renewed sense of mission in life.

Says Tuniu Elementary academic affairs officer Yu Chin-chiu: "Most students don't get a chance to plan out their own graduation trips until they're in senior high school, but our kids have learned how to do it in the sixth grade." The sixth-grade teachers who have spearheaded reform at Tuniu, says Yu, have always had lots of creative ideas, and once the people from HEF showed up, it just gave them all the more courage to put their ideas into practice. Yu is enthusiastic about the teacher training provided by HEF every Wednesday afternoon. Shih Ying, a professor of math at National Taiwan University, has spoken on the subject of how to make math fun. Chao Ching-chung, of the Teachers' Training Center, has spoken on "whole language education." Attendees have also watched and discussed documentaries produced by Full Shot Film/Video Studio.

Chiu Chao-hui describes HEF's contribution in this way: "The teachers at Tuniu who are interested in education reform were always that way. Then HEF came in and provided extra people to help the teachers think up new ideas. HEF has been a big help in that way." In Ms. Chiu's opinion, HEF has made one of its biggest contributions by impressing upon teachers the importance of getting the support and participation of parents. Before HEF came to Tuniu, a lot of classes never even held PTA meetings.

Outsiders on the attack

Says Lu Po-chun, director of HEF's Tungshih office: "We've really seen the emergence of some very dedicated teachers. We put in a lot of hard work in the first year, and set a precedent."

It hasn't been all smooth sailing, of course. Not all the teachers at Tuniu have been receptive toward the new ways, but the success achieved so far has been a good start. After construction of the new school got under way, HEF's office in Tungshih put top priority on community outreach. They began organizing workshops for parents so that the latter could act as assistants at school. The Tungshih office also began looking for ways to overcome legal restrictions so that the school could hire women from the local community (once they have received proper training) to care for kids after school.

Activists at HEF have taken advantage of the planning of new schools as an opportunity to put their ideas for education reform into practice, but after all the effort of the past couple of years, HEF reform efforts earn only mixed reviews. At HEF's offices in Tungshih and Nantou, the general verdict after two years is that the HEF has been attempting to "attack from the outside," and that the approach has not been too successful. Time and again, it has led to tug-of-war battles between schools and teachers.

Huang Shao-fu, director of the HEF office in Nantou, reports: "The teachers who've been receptive toward HEF are the ones who always tended to give kids a lot of leeway in the first place. They're less strict on discipline." Different problems have cropped up at different schools. Sometimes it has been the principal excited about reforming and the teachers dragging their feet. Sometimes the principal has been cool to the HEF's ideas. Sometimes a minority of teachers have wanted to make changes but, lacking administrative support, have found it hard going.

All schools are wary of HEF to at least some degree. The reconstruction of several schools is now complete, and HEF is watching to see what opportunities the new facilities will present. The new schools are mostly of wooden construction, and feature excellent lighting and lively color schemes. They expect the atmosphere to be very bright and cheerful in these new facilities.

In the view of Tsuo Han-jung, director of academic affairs at Shuiwei Elementary: "HEF respects the professional independence of teachers, and teachers are gradually beginning to realize that HEF isn't trying to interfere or tell them how to do their jobs. HEF has had some effect on people's thinking, but they certainly have not been a bull in a China closet."

Not just barking at the moon

Says Shih Ying: "In these two years we've planted some seeds and seen the beginnings of a new direction. Because we've got so many organizations involved in our project, schools are no longer operating in isolation. They've got a broader field of vision now." Nevertheless, the dream of enabling all children to learn in a happy atmosphere has yet to be achieved. The reason, in Shih's opinion, is that the most difficult part of education reform is changing the way people think, and Taiwan is laboring along under the crushing weight of a conservative educational system. It is just going to take more time to remedy a problem that has very deep roots.

Says Shih: "There is no shortcut or fast lane to education reform. You just have to begin somewhere and take it from there. And when you're just getting started you have to be very aware that you're establishing a precedent that will greatly influence what follows. We're still very much in the beginning stages right now. There's a tremendously long road ahead, so it's too early to be patting ourselves on the back."

But Shih remains optimistic: "The force that drives progress often comes from the very obstacles that stand in the way." The famous author Lu Xun once wrote in his preface to A Call to Arms that it is precisely when someone stands up to oppose your ideas that you feel most motivated to fight for what you believe in. If you make a statement that goes completely ignored, with no one in opposition or in favor, that's when you feel totally at a loss about how to proceed.

HEF does not lack for supporters. In the view of Hsiao Shu-min, principal of Kuanghsing Elementary in Luku Rural Township: "Crisis brings opportunity. After the earthquake, our school felt the warmth and concern of the community. After everything that people have done for us, we're all the more obligated to do the best possible job of educating the children." Hsiao feels that HEF really has identified the schools' weak points, particularly a lack of expertise in construction, which is why HEF procured the services of Atelier Zo, a noted Japanese architectural and urban planning firm.

The students at Kuanghsing Elementary are still going to class in a temporary shelter that was erected after the earthquake, and school administrators are looking forward with great anticipation to the completion of their new school buildings. Located in the noted tea-producing district of Luku Rural Township, Kuanghsing Elementary is not far from Kuanghua Street, which was the prosperous commercial heart of Luku back in the 18th century. The design of the new school buildings is coordinated with the look of Kuanghua Street to create an integrated feel for the whole neighborhood. The idea is to include "the school in the community, and the community in the school," and not just in an architectural sense, either. Local bamboo weavers, painters, and environmental experts have been invited to help students develop not only academically, but also to learn how to use their hands.

"Schools exist for the sake of the students," says Principal Hsiao. "We should be paying close attention to individual differences and helping kids enjoy themselves as they go through school. We have to try all sorts of different approaches. That is the only way we will be able to see the unique qualities in each and every student." Hsiao feels that HEF, by making the case for tailoring education to fit the individual, may have achieved a bit of change in the way teachers and students think.

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Two years after the 921 earthquake, the students and teachers of Tuniu Elementary School finally moved into their rebuilt school building in Shihkang Rural Township, Taichung County. The school's innovative design has enabled teachers to try out creative new teaching methods.

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Kids lounge around with their shoes off in this part of the class space at Shuiwei Elementary School. They are playing Chinese chess.

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Kids rest and play in the shade of an old tree. Isn't that just the sort of experience we want our kids to have at school?

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Creating a healthy environment for children is the whole idea behind the "new schools movement." Shown here is Yenho Junior High School. Located in Chushan Township, Nantou County, Yenho Junior High is one of several schools that were "adopted" by the Humanistic Education Foundation after the 921 earthquake.

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The Humanistic Education Foundation, which is vigorously pushing its ideas for education reform, hopes to ensure that all schools will value each student's unique character and help them grow up in an environment that is suited to their needs.